


as above so below (the hosanna americana remix)

by nantes (titians)



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Southern Gothic, Biblical References, F/M, Incest, Infidelity, M/M, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:57:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titians/pseuds/nantes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up down south you're brought up on a diet of grits and ghost stories, all lies and truths and God's wrath wrapped up together by your momma's tongue while the swamp flies buzz around you.  In this story, a boy grows up to play God and destroy a town, while everyone else falls into place. (<em>Glory to Him in the deepest South.</em>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	as above so below (the hosanna americana remix)

_“Tell about the South. What's it like there? What do they do there? Why do they live there? Why do they live at all?”_   **F A U L K N E R**

 

 

Once upon a time this town was like all the others around here. It got too hot in the summers until the rain came and everything stank of damp grass and honeysuckle blossom before the schools went back and the streets were empty of children once more while the rain season passed and the Mississippi went back to a regular height. But like most things that follow a pattern, something had to come along to break it.

That's not to say that people don't know what the monotonous pattern of their lives should be like. Or that they don't try and pretend that their lives are how they once were. But there is something about this town now, something kinda broken (although some argue it has been fixed) while the tourists seem to be coming less and less (although everything does seem to shine brighter, so the tourists are really missing out) and no one is really what they should be any more. Or, at least, what they _should have been_. You would really have to visited the place back then to understand what that all means though.

Or maybe that's just the way you're meant to think-

Let's start at the beginning and you can make your own judgments from there.

 

 

 

 

**i. the VIRGIN**

As long as Gretel stays in town, she is going to be fine. That's what everyone says; at 15, she is already the prettiest girl in town and the most popular girl in high school all because Hansel is the football captain (and will always carry that title with him, even long after he has graduated and moved on from fucking cheerleaders under the bleachers after the Friday night games, as long as he stays in town as well) and currency like that goes far within teenage hierarchy. But there is something about Gretel, something in the indifferent way she regards mostly everything, that tells everyone she knows she holds all the power, but likes to pretend she doesn't care.

At least-

That's what everyone else in town says.

Killian thinks she genuinely doesn't care. Sure, she cares about what Hansel thinks, cares about Hansel in general, and sometimes cares sparingly about Killian − at least enough to hold his hand on occasion; enough to kiss him a few times under the willow tree out in the Jones' yard last summer while Liam was fixing up that old Chevy, the one he kept promising Killian he'd teach him how to drive if he kept his grades up; and enough for her to go down on him in the front seat of that same Chevy, making Killian come, getting spunk in her hair and unable to say sorry enough but Gretel told him, "It's fine," while she wiped it out with a tissue − but not really about anyone else. Yeah. Killian can say with almost 100% certainty that Gretel really doesn't give a shit about anything anyone else thinks.

Because they aren't her big brother Hansel.

Today, it's just the two of them since Hansel's got practise and Killian has Math homework burning a hole in his bag but Gretel's grinning like the damn Cheshire cat, so Killian leaves his bag in the backseat next to hers and follows. Killian follows his friend, their step matching up like an awkward, half-practised dance, until she reaches her hand back and grabs his wrist − it doesn't take too much for him to fix her grip and tangle their fingers together.

They're nearly at the river bank when she asks, "Do you think there's more to life than this place?"

He regards her for a moment. Mostly because Gretel lets him. (She really is the prettiest girl in town and Killian isn't saying that from a biased standpoint.) "Well, sure," he supplies as an answer. Gretel frowns, unsatisfied by it, but Killian really has nothing more to say. He tries again with, "Why? You not like it here any more?"

She shrugs and for a fleeting moment Killian catches sight of her bra strap moving on her shoulder. He bites his lip.

"It's just kinda boring, isn't it?"

Killian lets her have it, staying quiet and moving his eyes back up to her face. Gretel continues, "And everyone goes on about how great this place is. How? We're named after some dumb, French pirate and the only reason we get tourism is cos everyone wants to be the one to find his treasure. If you don't like seafood or alligators, this is not the town for you."

"Are you saying you don't like alligators and seafood?"

Her knuckles meet his shoulder and once they're gone again, Killian soothes the spot with a gentle rub of his palm over it − he has a feeling it'll bruise by tomorrow but if he wears a long enough sleeve, he won't have to explain it to anyone.

She sighs, "You know what I mean."

"Not really."

"Everything's so- parochial. It's a small town with small minded people who never once in their lives − I can guarantee you − thought about what might be on the other side of the bayou."

Killian laughs.

Gretel whips her head around to glare at him. He continues to laugh, once, but manages to cover it underneath, "What do you really expect?"

"It's just boring," she repeats. "Like everyone woke up one morning and decided they would do nothing of significance with their lives and that was it. And now we're stuck here, because centuries ago people decided to be boring and that was it." Softly (possibly the softest voice Killian has ever heard her use) Gretel admits, "I keep waiting for something special to happen. Don't you?"

Because he is 16, Killian has to fight very hard not to says 'I've got you' or something equally stupid like that. All that would earn him is a mocking laugh and Gretel's sympathetic face telling him, "You're just like the rest of them." Because he is 16, he genuinely thinks Gretel is the something special he's been waiting for. (He doesn't realise it now but in the future he will; he'll see that Gretel was right about everything, including telling him 'you're just like the rest of them' for thinking that, whether the moment actually happened or not. But for now, Killian thinks she is special and does nothing more.)

"Yeah," he answers, but Gretel has already moved on.

 

*

 

Only 2000 or so people live in Jean LaFitte, so when it comes out that Gretel is pregnant Killian already knows before she comes to him herself to say it. At first he tries to talk to her in the hall, but Liam is sitting at the dining room table, tinkering with some car parts and getting oil all over Momma's polish mahogany, and Killian doesn't really want to have this conversation in front of his brother.

Because Liam will tell Momma and Momma will tut and say something mean about Gretel − like the time she said, "That girl knows her temptations just as well as she knows her scriptures," which Killian didn't understand at all but it left a horrible taste in his mouth, like he had been sucking on an old copper penny, all the same − and even if that wasn't Liam's intention at all by telling her, Killian still gently pushes Gretel towards the door.

As with everything else in Gretel's life, she is handling this indifferently. Indifferent and perhaps a little cold.

All Killian wants to do is wrap her up in a hug, whisper promises that it will be alright until she gives him something back. _Anything_. A sob, a tear, a hand placed solidly on his back and fingers tightening in the back of his t-shirt. Refusing to let him go just as much as he doesn't want her to let go of him. Instead, she gives him-

Nothing.

Gretel's hands remain by her sides while Killian holds her.

She coughs, turning her face away.

Eventually, he has to let go. Once free again, she scratches at her arm. She avoids looking at him and that- that is the first sign of _anything_ she gives him. He worries his bottom lip into his mouth with his teeth in response, even though she can't see him do it.

Killian asks in a mumbled tone, "Is- are you- What are you going to do?" Three times he tries and that is the best he can come up with.

Gretel breathes out a laugh like it is her last resort.

"Have a baby, I guess."

He asks (he has to), "Who is the dad?"

Meeting his eye, Gretel gives Killian the saddest smile. It almost makes him reach to pull her in to his chest again. _Almost_. All she says is, "Doesn't matter," and again, "really. It's not important."

"Alright."

She doesn't stay much longer than that. The conversation stops dead and there is only so long Killian can stand there in silence before an awkward weight sets about his shoulders, making him hunch over with it. Gretel moves to go first, doesn't physically say goodbye but gives him a silent look that says everything. (It hits Killian somewhere around the lungs, startling him with the force of it.) He moves to hug her once more and- he swears he sees her flinch, the flicker of a startled deer but it is gone again before he can comment on it, can see it well enough to confirm it happened at all.

"I'll see ya, yeah?" he calls out, Gretel all the way down to the garden gate by now and the end of her braid twisted between her fingers.

 

*

 

The baby is born six weeks after Gretel's 16th birthday.

Hansel misses a game because of the birth, giving the newborn boy a mark before he has barely drawn breath − "The team was nothing without their captain," a redhead says to her friend as she passes Killian on Monday in the halls but Killian ignores it, too busy wondering what flowers he should send Gretel. There are rumours going around that she won't be coming back to school. Rumours in Jean LaFitte are gospel.

He settles on roses because the florist has beautiful white ones for sale and Killian has never bought a girl flowers before, so the sentimentality of the moment traps him into spending $50 on his friend.

Gretel looks exhausted but there is a smile planted firmly on her face as she opens the front door to him. Killian moves in for a hug but quickly remembers the roses, jerking back awkwardly before Gretel can reach him and thrusting the bouquet into her personal space. "These are for you," he explains needlessly but Gretel just keeps smiling. She guides him towards the stairs and into the nursery.

(Everything is off white and pale blue; Killian offered to help paint it but Hansel told him he had it covered.)

In his crib, the baby is- sleeping? Killian can't tell. His eyes appear closed but he moves his head towards Gretel, as if he senses her presence next to him. Killian doesn't really know what to make of it, of him − he doesn't look a thing like Gretel, more like a grumpy little Winston Churchill than anyone else Killian can think of, but there is something about him.

Impossibly tender, Gretel reaches her hand towards her son and strokes the soft pad of her thumb across the plump of his pink cheek. She is smiling so wide that Killian can't help but smile himself at the sight.

"We've decided to name him Peter," she says, then coos softly as the boy moves more towards her, almost reaching out to take her finger in his tiny baby fist. "For the first two days he was just 'Baby', but- I like Peter. Hansel likes Daniel," she supplies despite the irrelevance.

Killian says it as if practising it. "Peter." He nods. "I like it; a solid biblical name."

Gretel chuckles softly. But the noise is gone as quickly as it came.

"We're also gonna tell him that he's my brother." Killian lets his smile fall away. He looks down at Peter, this tiny thing, and immediately feels sorry for him. He might be only a few days old but he knows. He knows _exactly_ who his mother is. "My parents think it would be for the best − they've already spoken to people, so- hopefully no one will say anything when he's older."

"But. Why lie to him?"

Killian knows he shouldn't have asked. Gretel's face takes on a look that is both sad and sorry all at once. But- he can't understand. Everyone in town has been talking about this for months, about Gretel being pregnant and all the rumours and gossip about who the father is. Her smile is watery. Still there but somehow lessened.

She answers, "Because it's easier than telling him the truth."

Her tone suggests that Killian isn't being told the truth either.

 

*

 

The rumours are true. Gretel never goes back to school and without her, the monotony of Math class and football games gets stagnant for Killian. Boring. Sure, he's got other friends − friends who regard him with more than casual indifference, yeah − but it isn't the same. He continues on til graduation, keeps his grades up and goes to prom with Tink and decides that as soon as July 1 clocks in, he is out of this town. But not before-

Killian switches the engine off and gets out of the car. Uselessly his hands hang by his side as he walks towards the front door, the green paint freshly applied last week so it shines out in the last of the day's sun; he should have brought a gift, he thinks, but would feel even more an idiot if he left now to buy something mediocre only to return again and have Gretel tell him, "You didn't need to."

He knocks three times quickly.

_Knock knock knock_

On the other side of the door he hears someone call out as footsteps tap lightly off the wooden floor. Gretel answers with a toy car in her left hand. It's bright red. Killian can't help staring at it.

"Hi," she greets, stepping back to let him in, but he shakes his head.

"I'm not staying long," he states.

Gretel nods, somewhat seriously.

(For whatever reason, Killian thinks of them standing on the river bank that day after school. He thinks of what Gretel said and how it should be her and not him leaving. He feels like a fraud; a cheat, a liar. A thief. As soon as this conversation is over, he is getting into his car and leaving Jean LaFitte behind while Gretel stays. Because there is a little boy somewhere in the house behind her who needs her to stay. A little boy who thinks she is his sister, despite everything else pointing to the contrary. Killian wishes he could take both of them with him.)

She says, "You're going then. Off to see the world."

 

 

\+ + +

 

 

**a. the PRODIGAL SON RETURNS**

The last thing Killian said to his brother was 'Look after her for me'.

"Look after her for me," he had said, throwing his bag into the backseat of the car while Liam folded his arms across his chest and laughed out. Inside the house Momma was busying herself with something, dusting an ornament or tutting over how badly the silverware needed to be polished; anything other than coming to say goodbye to her younger son.

In return, Liam had reminded him, "She won't want me snooping around. But- I'll try."

They both knew they weren't talking about Momma.

Now, almost 17 years later, Killian is on the phone to his mother while she sobs. He promises her he will be home as soon as he can, already scrolling through flights for the next morning. New York to New Orleans, 5:15am departure − sounds perfect.

"I'll be home, don't worry," he reassures her, then hangs up before the next flood of tears can come at him.

 

 

\+ + +

 

 

**ii. the MESSIAH**

Peter never grows up to look like Gretel. At 16 he looks nothing like her but carries himself the way she did at that age; he is fairer where she is dark, green eyes where hers are deep brown and wholly less freckled. He has his grandmother's nose − his _mother's_ nose as far as he knows − but the rest of him is his own.

The very minute he can talk, he owns the town. He walks about as if he was always there, a permanent fixture on the streets amongst the Mardi Gras decorations before Lent and the Lorraine cross on top of St Anthony's church. It is for the best, really − his devil-may-care swagger is the perfect shield against the gossip about him around the town. 2000 people might seem like a lot but on the grand scale of things they are nothing. Peter lets their words − ones they think he can't hear just because they speak behind the hood of their hands − wash over him like water.

("Gretel was the same at that age," one woman says to her friend, "and look what happened to her.")

He doesn't care _what_ they have to say, but he likes that they say it.

(Except what they say about Gretel. But we will get to that in a while.)

 

*

 

Since Peter started high school, Gretel has got into the habit of leaving her bedroom window unlocked for him when he stays out late. It is the easier solution than having him come in the front door, waking Mom and Dad up and starting an argument so loud the neighbours complain. (Really, Mom and Dad died a year ago, but Gretel keeps the window open all the same − even though Peter knows she won't start an argument about him coming in late. Mom and Dad died but very little of their lives changed because of it; fixing Peter's tie the morning of the funeral, Gretel said to him, "They've left us to the wilderness and our own devices," which was an oddly comforting sentence that kept a smile on his face even as the coffins were lowered into the graves.)

Tonight, she has yet to go to bed when Peter climbs in. And he is drunk.

He crows in triumph when he successfully steps off the garage roof and pulls himself onto the window ledge, his upper body all but falling inside while his left leg dangles out, toe of his boot kicking off the front wall of the house. He gets greeted by a shriek from Gretel, who jumps up from her chair in shock at the sight of him, but before Peter can say anything, his face meets the carpet and his arm knocks a stuffed lion from its seat next to her bookshelf.

"Ow."

"Shit, Peter," she says, with her hand on Peter's back, coaxing him carefully into the room.

Outside, something, that sounds kinda like the large flowerpot that _used to_ sit on top of the garage, shatters off the driveway.

Peter scuffs his chin off the carpet lifting his head to look at her, smiling up at Gretel as she asks, "It's not even 10 yet, why didn't you come in through the front door?" He fails at a shrug and lets her pull him the rest of the way inside.

"Thought I'd come home in this way and surprise you."

Gretel smiles, "Yeah. You definitely did that alright." Together, they get him into a standing position, his legs a bit wobbly still but his feet solid on the carpet and Gretel's hands warm and steady on his shoulders. "Are you drunk?"

She doesn't seem mad. Peter likes that, goes to tell her 'yes' or 'thanks for understanding' but gets distracted by how much he wants to lie down. He wants to ask her if he can but the bed to their right is hers. He feels kinda rude asking. Instead, he says, "Rum," like it is a suitable response.

She laughs.

"So you are."

"Maybe just a little."

Another laugh, softer this time, and she heads for the door. Peter feels crooked without her propping him up, sagging somewhere around the waist. "Sit down," she insists, hand on the doorframe. "I'm gonna go make you something to eat."

"And find a bucket," he calls after her but her footsteps are already on the stairs.

In the quiet of the house, Peter hears her humming to herself in the kitchen, something he has heard playing on the radio for the last few months but no name, singer or track, comes to mind. He takes her bed, just about kicking his boots off before he puts his feet on top of the covers; Gretel sighs at the sight of him but the sound is fond. In mock retaliation, she balances the bucket on his stomach, before putting the plate down on the bedside table and nudging her way onto the bed beside him with her knee.

Peter groans at being forced to move.

"Oh stop," she orders, picking the plate back up. The smell of peanut butter makes his stomach heave. "I cut the crusts off for you."

He instructs, "Hold my bucket," and takes the sandwich from her.

They don't talk while he eats. Peter gets crumbs everywhere but despite the growing nausea in his stomach, he enjoys every bite. Gretel has always been good at making him sandwiches − she seems to know the right ratio of peanut butter to strawberry jelly and always takes just the right amount of crust off the edges. _And_ she cuts the sandwich into triangles, not squares, since anyone who has ever eaten a sandwich will tell you that it is scientific fact food tastes better when there are only three corners, not four.

He catches her looking at him as he licks his thumb clean, pausing to swallow down the last bit of strawberry jelly and process, then informs her, "Rum is gross without a mixer."

Her smile is lopsided, more on the left of her mouth than the right and Peter can't say he's ever properly noticed her smiling like that before but. He likes it. "Yeah," she agrees, "rum is kinda gross without a mixer. Who brought the rum, anyway?"

"Felix."

Gretel manages to look fond and amused and disappointed all at once.

Peter frowns but quickly moves onto check his plate for anything else − he is suddenly hungry, although that may be because his stomach wants something more solid to throw up than anything else. Remorsefully, he tells her, "I am finished with my sandwich," as he trades the plate back for the lime green bucket. He hugs it to himself and closes his eyes.

Brushing his hair away from his forehead, Gretel says, "You get some sleep."

She is at the door when he seeks her out again.

"Mom," Peter calls out.

In the doorway Gretel flickers, fading into and back out of blurriness in his drunken vision. Quickly he retracts it, amends his mistake with, "Sorry. Sorry- in the light, you looked a little like her."

"It's alright," she dismisses, dropping her head to look at the carpet. Peter licks his lip, cradles the bucket closer and shuts his eyes once more. "Go to sleep."

He doesn't ask where she is going to go.

And Gretel turns off the light, shutting the door behind herself without another word.

 

*

 

(An interlude, of sorts:

Five days before his fourth birthday, Peter wakes up screaming from a dream. He can't remember all of it but there was something about a crocodile. And perhaps he had the ability to fly too. There are tears wetting his cheeks and his lungs don't seem to be working quickly enough, his breathing choked − a hiccup here and a sob there. He is alone for only a moment, the briefest amount of time, until Gretel bolts through the door and has her arms around him.

It is always Gretel who comes. Her room is the closest and Peter finds her warmer than Mom.

Peter buries his face into her neck where her dark hair is loose all around her. She smells like her shampoo, apple blossom and cherries, with the darker, more magical smell of her skin underneath and Peter drinks it all in, starting to relax as she carefully rubs loops and figures of eight on his back with her palm.

"It's alright," she whispers.

Peter closes his eyes and listens to her heartbeat, to the way her voice vibrates through her.

Gretel says, "You're alright, I've got you." She kisses lightly at his hair, his curls sweaty underneath her lips. "Nothing's going to hurt you, not when I've got you."

Although he stops crying, Peter continues to shake for a while. And for all that time Gretel's hand keeps moving on his back. For all that time, she keeps reassuring him she is here and nothing will hurt him while she is. Softly, she promises, "I'm not going anywhere," and Peter steals the words for himself, moves his tear stained face out of the dark tangles of her hair and looks at her face, making sure she means it. She smiles down at him.

Never once does she ask him what was wrong.

Peter takes that to mean the most. That she didn't ask because she could fix it anyway, just by being there. And selfishly − because he is three, nearly turning four, and little boys are selfish, greedy creatures with the affections of others − he takes that all for himself too. Buries the sentiment away inside him, never to let anyone know he has it.)

 

*

 

After the high school gym burns to the ground and Peter comes home with soot on his fingers, leaving stains on the back of the couch and up the banisters as he sneaks to his room without Gretel seeing him, the town all points their fingers at Peter. To be honest, the accusations of delinquency, people pointing their fingers at him and saying he is leading their sons and daughters astray is nothing he hasn't heard before. (He has _really_ heard it all.) But now there's something else in their tone-

Something very similar to fear.

At this realisation, Peter feels a smirk settling onto his features. He smirks and smiles and smirks and smiles until his cheeks ache with it and Gretel calls him down for dinner, then continues to wear it while he sets the table as requested and passes the bread.

To be honest, she knows. And Peter knows she knows. But Peter also knows − the same way he knows he can come home drunk, through her bedroom window late on a school night and she won't say anything − that Gretel won't say anything. She won't ask him if he did it or who he was with, even if the tell-tale black smudges on the back of their cream couch are enough of a confession from him to hang him in the town square for it, because they don't have the money to pay for the damages. Because the town, because the residents of Jean LaFitte already say the worst things about the pair of them and an admission of guilt, followed by the public humiliation of having to pay for something they cannot afford, is enough to keep her quiet.

(Does Peter feel bad about this? Sure. If there is one person he cares about in this town, it is Gretel. But now the town fears him. Now the town has a burnt down gym, a solid reminder of the damage he can cause. It is just unfortunate that he has to hurt Gretel as well.)

Once they've cleared the table and set the dishwasher to the shortest cycle, Gretel heads out onto the back porch for a cigarette. Peter watches her leave then lingers there. He lingers, taking in the click of her lighter and the scuffing noise her shoes make against the wooden steps as she moves herself to sit down on the slats. He lets his shoulders relax and turns to the fridge; he figures since he has no plans for the night, he might as well join her out there.

He takes two bottles.

Gretel laughs at the sight of them but silently accepts the one from his left hand. She doesn't even try.

He tries a 'can I have a-' but she is quicker than him, breaks over his question with, "No, you cannot," before taking a dramatic drag from her cigarette − Gretel smokes red L&Ms which have the best filter in the world, according to their advertising campaign, but taste like licking a gravel road in Peter's mouth. He expects her to blow a smoke ring, to really make her point really stick, but she doesn't.

They sit in comfortable silence, staring out into the backyard together. Beyond their hedge, the lights of the town flicker in the lazy haze of the night. Other than the buzz of the late night bugs, the place is quiet. Lazy and quiet. That is all. 

Kinda like the rest of the town.

Peter looks at her and waits for Gretel to look at him.

She does, but she smokes the rest of her cigarette, stubbing it out on the porch beside her, before she does. "Y'alright?" she asks, before he can say anything (not that he has anything to say).

He nods.

They go back to silence and Gretel tips at her packet of cigarettes, spinning it between her fingers and the step she is sitting on. Over and over. While Peter sits there, watching her hand working the box around and around; his whole world shrinks in on that box, on her long, thin fingers against the fire engine red of the label. He feels himself sigh but can't place why he does it.

"Sis," he sounds out.

She hums but doesn't look at him. Out in front of her the lights twinkle in the haze, like the laziest moving fireflies in existence.

Peter takes a mouthful of his beer to loosen up his tongue.

He tries, "You know I love you, right?"

"Is this where you tell me about how you and Felix burnt down the gym by accident and then ask me what we're gonna do about it?"

His face moves into a wide smile at her words. "No."

That gets her attention.

With her mouth around a laugh she faces him once more, takes a sip from her beer and hisses the swallow, the noise loud against the quiet, like sudden static from an old television. Peter grins at her, amused. "I didn't think so," she states.

It only makes him smile wider.

"So, what then?"

"Just felt you should know."

"Loser," she calls him.

Peter lets himself laugh at that but doesn't comment. There comes a rustle in the bushes just a little away from them but it turns out to only be the wind picking up. And it stops after less than a minute. Peter frowns at it. "You know this place?" he asks.

"Are you talking about the back yard or-"

"Fuck you."

Gretel rolls her eyes.

He starts again, "You know this town," properly emphasising the word to prod at her with it. It earns him another roll of her eyes and, just to be a dick, Peter kicks at her foot with his own. She doesn't retaliate. "Did you ever think about leaving it?"

Gretel stays quiet.

Peter knows her well enough to know she's avoiding.

"I mean- if Mom and Dad were still around. Or I was old enough to look after myself. Is there anywhere else you would go? Get out of here and see the world, maybe?"

There is no real reason why he is asking. Truth be told, Peter has no plans of leaving. The more he stays, the more he is around, the more he bothers people. Simply by existing in their space. And there is something deliciously fine about that, having that amount of control over people by just _being_. But Hansel left. . . Hansel got out of town when Peter was about five and hasn't come home since. Sure, he calls every now and again, but every Thanksgiving and Christmas, he stays away. And sometimes Peter does wonder if Gretel would have liked to have gone with him. It is probably the night in it, the way everything is boring and lazy. A load of nothing. Reminding Peter that the town is also a load of nothing. So, he waits for Gretel to answer.

It comes out of her mouth sadly. Like she's sorry she is admitting it. She says, "Yeah. I would be gone in a heartbeat."

It sorta sounds like betrayal and it sticks in Peter's throat like a bad taste.

"But," she continues, "that ain't the case. I'm here and you're stuck with me, kid."

 

*

 

Gretel has a tattoo on her flank of a bird with an arrow in its beak. Peter doesn't know what type of bird it is but he has no real desire to find out. Most of the time he forgets she even has the damn thing, but then she will come down the stairs in a baggy t-shirt with the sleeves and half the sides cut off and remind him that he held her hand while she got it done one afternoon they drove out to New Orleans together.

The way he finds her looking at him, frowning at him when she catches him staring, Peter figures sometimes Gretel forgets she has the bird too.

She takes another sip of her coffee before she looks at what he's looking at.

"Oh," she says.

Peter returns to his cereal, shovelling a spoonful so large into his mouth that he ends up with milk dribbling over his chin. She tuts and passes him a tissue, the sound of her sock covered feet soft on the linoleum floor. "You ok this morning?" she asks. He keeps chewing. "You're a bit- space-y."

He spits up a few wet crumbs when he replies, "Space-y?"

"Yeah," she urges, repeating, "space-y. You're staring all weird."

"Your bird."

"With an arrow," she amends. "What about it?"

"It's there."

"Well done."

Peter frowns heavily, his forehead wrinkling with it and his nose moving too. (Once, Gretel told him he looked like an angry rabbit. Maybe that's what he's going for.) She laughs. He goes for the only thing he can and asks, "What does it mean?"

"Nothing."

He doesn't accept that. If there is one thing he knows about Gretel, it is she doesn't do anything without carefully considering it first. Everything has a reason or a meaning and this is no different. Peter thinks it is a good quality in a person; it makes her solid, caring. Tactical. He waits for her to fix it. She tries again with, "I like birds."

"No. Why the arrow, then?" Because she was the one to correct him, to mention the weapon as if it is an important as the animal.

"Finish your breakfast."

He does, but not because she told him to. He does because he hates when the milk makes the cereal soggy and inedible, all the flavour bleeding into the liquid and filling his mouth with mush. He finishes, then cleans up, washes his teeth, fixes his hair and grabs his bag and for the whole time, he thinks about Gretel's tattoo. It is a small thing, basically stick and poke but with enough detail to show that the bird's eye and the arrow's point are equally sharp.

Yanking his sweater from the top banister, he takes the stairs two by two and meets Gretel at the door.

"It's you," he says.

It takes her a minute, but Peter is the same blood as her and there is a quickness about them both. "Yeah, alright," she concedes.

"And me."

"If that's what you want it to mean, that's what it means."

Grinning, he heads for the car while she puts on the alarm. He knows he's right.

 

 

\+ + +

 

 

**b. the FIRST MIRACLE**

"Hey," Peter says.

Wendy leans in even though he didn't ask nicely. He smells like deodorant, the sharp tang of it all around him, working overtime in the spring heat. Snippily, when he stays quiet too long, she inquires, "What?" clipping the harsh consonant sound off the roof of her mouth with the tip of her tongue.

Peter laughs.

His fingers brush her neck. Wendy shudders without meaning to. "Wanna see a magic trick?" he asks and his mouth remains open once he is finished with his words. Wendy angles her head, leaning her shoulder into his chest as she waits. It feels like he may kiss her. It never comes yet when Peter moves his head, Wendy feels her breath catch in anticipation. With a hint of a smirk around the corner of his mouth he raises his eyebrow at her.

She flushes all the way to her throat.

He removes her earring without another word. It is a gold cross; Daddy bought them for her for her Communion then bought her silver dove ones for her Confirmation. "Don't lose it," she cautions with a quiver in her voice. Yes, it is _only_ an earring but they have sentimental value.

His face goes serious for a second and Peter shakes his head.

"Watch."

Carefully, Wendy watches his fingers. He is going to make it disappear − that much she has figured out. But she misses it. It makes her frown. "I-" She lets that sentence go and tries another. "How did you do that?"

"Watch," he repeats.

This time, she watches his sleeve. Where else would it go? But again she misses it. Her head tells her she only did because she wants to; she wants to miss the sleight of his hand because this is Peter and Wendy can't help but wanting to always be a little bit amazed by him. When he hands it back to her, it is as if he pulls it out of thin air. Definitely not out of his sleeve. His smile is crooked and Wendy quietly replies, "Thank you."

Now, he kisses her. It is soft and brief but Wendy's heart flutters in her chest at the press of their mouths, at how his nose butts into her cheek. Her fingers reach up to catch his collar, keeping him in place as her lips smile against his.

 

 

\+ + +

 

 

**iii. the MAGDALENE**

Wendy takes over from where Gretel left off.

The second coming.

A phoenix from the ashes.

Whatever stupid title you want to put on it, the way it goes is Gretel has a kid and loses her crown as prettiest girl in town and 17 years later, Wendy Darling comes along and gets crowned with the same title. It is probably fate or coincidence or something in between, when Wendy befriends Peter. Though- maybe 'befriends' in the wrong word.

Let's start at the beginning:

Wendy first met Peter the first day of high school. She didn't _actually_ speak to him until the third day but sometimes Wendy mistakes 'met' for 'saw' when she thinks back on the first time she watched him walk by. His face was all big, green eyes and he was flanked on both sides by taller, blonder boys. She knew the one on the left as Felix − he sometimes helped out Daddy with the little league softball team Michael and John were on − but the other one was a stranger. And so was Peter. But there was something special about Peter, something in the gait of his walk and how he held himself so much taller, straighter, _better_ than all the other freshmen.

Now, three years and some change later, Peter can convince her to skip class without much effort, but Wendy writes that off as part of his charm.

She likes him. That's the best way to put it. She definitely has a crush on him too, the way 16 year old girls get crushes on the bad boy type who hides the As he gets in Chemistry and English behind skipping at least one period a day. And sometimes she worries that she wears her affection too openly, that while she is staring moony eyed and beaming at Peter, he is looking at his friends and wondering how to let her down gently. Because- because Peter is like what people say Gretel was like at his age; coldly indifferent to everything and wholly unaware of the amount of broken hearts left in their wake. Except-

Except Wendy thinks Peter knows.

She can't say for sure about Gretel. People have compared her to her, said, "Ah, Queen Bee of Jean LaFitte," about her and Gretel alike. To Wendy's face and everything − a completely embarrassing moment that had her turn tomato red all the way to the top of her ears and bleeding down from her neck to her chest. But-

Oh, what do 16 year old girls really know?

 

*

 

Peter fucks Wendy in the back seat of Gretel's car because that is what teenage boys are meant to do with pretty teenage girls, right?

He has never really thought about sex with her before. Never had those thoughts about parting her pale thighs, his fingers bump-bump-bumping along the edge of her skirt until it is rolled high enough for him to get his fingers on the hem of her panties and gently pull them away. No, Peter can say he has never thought about doing that before. But when it happens, it feels like the most natural thing in the world − almost as if he has practised it a thousand times.

"I'm ok," she says when he pauses for a moment. He sorta gets stuck looking at her. Her blouse is open and her bra is pushed out of the way just enough to see where her bikini covers her in the Summer, her tan lines a stark contrast between two skin tones. She affirms, "I'm ok."

Peter hadn't thought to ask.

He lays her down on her back and her skirt ends up on the floor behind the driver's seat. He makes sure not to kick it under as he shifts to kneel between her legs but then takes his attention off her long enough to shimmy out of his underwear. Wendy fishes the condom out of his back pocket before his jeans get too far down, her fingers shaking the way his arm does as he holds himself up − for her, it is all nerves; for Peter, it's the angle and the pressure he is putting on his wrist. Underneath him, Wendy makes a hot, wet little noise as he trails his fingers along her thigh, like he is drawing the noise out of her.

He likes the sound of it.

With a smile, he kisses her, his eyes closed and the feeling of his eyelashes on her face.

It isn't a great angle for it but she reaches down to roll the condom on him, savouring the way he pushes his moan into her mouth with his tongue. She bashes her elbow off the door handle but it is worth it.

They both still before Peter pushes in.

Wendy strokes her thumb along his jaw while Peter weighs her hip down under his palm. He groans; she lets her eyes flutter closed.

 

*

 

Despite all the things people say about Peter around town, Nana tells Wendy to invite Peter to dinner.

Wendy wonders if anyone can tell what happened the other night. If there's something about her now that shows she isn't a virgin any more. She feels different, sorta special but sorta not at the same time, younger and infinitely older all at once. She tells herself it's nonsense, that she is being ridiculous but then she nearly tells Michael as they pass on the way to their rooms because her skin is humming with it and her brain won't stay quiet with the need to say 'Peter and I had sex'.

She doesn't though. Instead, she keeps it to herself and invites Peter to dinner for the following Wednesday.

There is a ten second gap in between Wendy asking and Peter answering where she expects him to say no. Which only makes her squeak of delight that more shrill when he does say yes. He says, "Yeah. I- I'll tell Gretel later," even though it looks like he's about to say something else.

Wendy lets it go and goes to History.

When he arrives at dinner, Daddy sits at the head of the table while Nana makes sure Peter ends up opposite Wendy. The boys sit on either side of her, gawking the way boys do when another boy comes over and hogs their sister's attention.

Mom is working late in the hospital so Wendy apologises to Peter on her behalf. It's only polite.

"Gretel's got a late shift tonight too," he replies as food gets put down in front of them all.

From the top of the table, Daddy says, "Oh? And where does she work?"

"A bar on Plantation Street."

"And this is your mom-"

"Sister," Peter corrects. It is too swift, too sharp to be taken as anything other than defensive; even little John looks up from his plate where he has carefully organised his peas into two rows, and looks at him. Wendy wishes she could reach out to Peter and hold his hand, soothe him gently with the stroke of her thumb over his knuckles. But there is a gravy boat and a glass of water in the way and, anyway, Peter has picked up his knife by the time the idea flashes in her head.

Daddy hums, "Mmm, yes. I- I know her."

Peter cocks an eyebrow but lets it go.

"You have a brother as well, don't you? He was captain of the football team."

Picking around his chicken, Peter explains Hansel has gone north, away from Louisiana completely, and that he hasn't seen him in years. Daddy seems surprised by that − he gets that wrinkle around his nose he always does when he's thinking something he shouldn't, but Mom isn't home tonight to tell him not to say it. He asks Peter, "Does he never come home?"

"Never."

"Not even to see you and your sister?"

"He calls something but not a lot." Peter strokes a hand across his arm and wears his shoulders in the most awkward fashion Wendy has ever seen them.

Next to her elbow, John destroys his rows of peas by shoving them into his mash potatoes.

"Funny," Daddy says. "They used to be so close."

Peter stays quiet.

Daddy says, "When they were teenagers − about your age − they went everywhere together."

"It's not really like that anymore," Peter states and Daddy stares at him. "He didn't even come home for Mom and Dad's funeral."

Daddy swallows and Wendy does too. If Mom was here, she'd say something like 'no death at the dinner table', even to Peter, despite his status as a guest. But Mom isn't here and John is still messing with his peas and Wendy worries Peter is never going to come over again. She gets out of cleaning up after begging Nana, who ruffles her hand over her granddaughter's hair and tells Wendy, "Go on then," but she has to make sure Peter is ok.

"You ok?" she asks, closer to Peter's house than to her own. Peter watches his feet walk on the pavement and only offers a shrug in reply, a quick lurch of his shoulders. "I'm sorry about Daddy asking those questions about your brother and sister."

Peter retorts, "It's fine," but, like before, it is defensive.

Wendy gets caught between wanting to pull back and wanting to hold his hand.

"He didn't mean anything by it."

The noise he makes is non-committal.

Wendy wets her lip and tries again, goes for, "What's she like?" which only makes Peter frown, so she quickly adds, "your sister. Gretel."

Peter sighs and rolls his eyes. In her head, Wendy hears Mom's voice saying 'one day you're gonna sigh yourself blind, child' and does her best not to smile at it. It wouldn't fit the moment and- Wendy is trying so hard not to fuck this up. They stop on the corner together, Peter's house in front of them with none of the lights on and no car in the driveway. Wendy thinks about asking him if she can come in for a while, keep him company, but he has yet to answer her first question so she doesn't bother bringing up a second.

There is an oil stain on the cement outside the house. Wendy focuses on that and they stand there.

With a roll of his shoulders, he says, "She's- Gretel's all I've got, really."

Wendy thinks it's a lie. _Knows_ it is, in fact, since Peter has a following of friends at school; definitely has Felix and absolutely has her. But it doesn't sound like a lie. Like Peter believes it is the truth and that is all that matters.

She lets her mouth turn into a sad smile.

"Oh," she lets him have.

Peter replies, "She's great. You'd like her."

Wendy doesn't think she would. (For the silliest of reasons, but when you're 16 and in love with someone who values someone else over you, most of the things you think and do are for the silliest reasons. Which is unfair, on herself and on Gretel, since she doesn't know Gretel. But they say some horrible things around town about her, even though Nana always says 'never listen to gossip, it never does anyone any good'. And if Peter loves her so much, she must be wonderful- but that is the problem, isn't it?)

She tells a lie of her own next, and says, "Yeah. I'm sure I would."

 

 

\+ + +

 

 

**c. the CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE**

"How come we don't go to church any more?"

Gretel looks up at him from her coffee cup, the paper open across the table in front of her and the end of the milk from her cereal still in the bottom of her bowl. She is wearing sweatpants and her hair is in a top knot. Service starts in 15 minutes. She swallows her mouthful and replies, "What?"

Peter sighs.

He is wearing a shirt and neatly ironed khakis. Gretel looks like she is toying with the idea of teasing him. "Mom and Dad used to go to church, how come we don't?"

"You wanna go to church?"

It is a question but she isn't waiting for an answer, rising out of her chair and folding the newspaper. He nods and takes the paper from her as she passes him, their knees brushing as she doesn't fully step around him. "Here," he insists, half-sighing with it. He takes the bowl out of her hands. "I'll do that, you go get suitable pants."

Gretel puts on jeans. Peter is certain they aren't going to be deemed 'suitable' by the rest of the parishioners.

In the car, with the radio switched off and her window rolled down, Gretel takes a right and asks him, "Why do you wanna go to church anyway? Is this cos of that Darling girl?"

Peter can't say it is but also can't say it isn't so he has to shrug. "Not really."

"Is it because you burnt the gym down?" she whispers, leaning in even though she is pulling into the church parking lot and really should be paying attention to what's going on around her.

"No," and it comes out on a cackle of a laugh, bubbling out of his throat.

Gretel drops the subject once the engine is off − she otherwise doesn't care or doesn't want to talk about it, both options suit Peter. He walks half a step behind her, matching her rhythm by accident more than anything else, but when Gretel stops in the doorway, looking at the rather full congregation in front of her, Peter bumps into her back, smacking his chin into the hard line of her shoulder blade. She asks, "Where do you want to sit?"

Part of him wants to say 'the front row', just to make everyone watch him walk passed. But he can feel the tension in Gretel's stance, the awkward set of her spine and the warmth of her skin underneath her shirt as he is pressed up against her and in the end Peter says, "Wherever you want."

They settle on the middle. Not too close nor far away.

Handing her his jacket, Peter states, "I'm going to get a hymn book."

He only thinks of lighting a candle when he spots them sitting there. Neat rows of tea lights in front of a statue of St Anthony of Assisi. He holds an infant Jesus on his hip and stares at the boy with a serene, almost kind look. Somewhere, buried in a photo album in their living room, there is a photo of Gretel holding Peter and looking at him in much the same way; it's because of this and nothing else Peter decides to light a candle under him, although he really isn't sure what St Anthony stands for. ("A mafioso," Dad had said once, Gretel complaining about losing something and being unable to find it while Mom told her, "Pray to St Anthony and he will find it for you." Dad had told Peter, "He only finds it for you if you offer to put money in his shrine," then he had tipped the end of his nose and winked, like it was their secret.)

Once the candle is lit − after he has given three quarters to the shrine because that is all his has in his pockets − Peter idly thinks who he wants to dedicate it to. It is only because he hasn't settled on someone that he hears the hushed whisper of Gretel's name.

Behind him, one woman points while she whispers to her friend.

An uneasy, angry feeling travels up Peter's spine.

He lights another candle, staring at the statue of St Anthony afterwards as if defying him to say something. This time, the candle is for Gretel and St Anthony never moves to tell Peter to blow it out. He wouldn't dare, he thinks as he stomps back to his seat, rudely using his knees to get passed the other people in the row.

He hasn't got a hymn book.

Gretel says nothing but her hand finds his knee.

At the communion Peter lets Gretel go first and focuses on the way the muscles in her shoulders move as she raises her hands from her sides to cup in front of herself, a quick 'amen' on her lips to the priest before she moves on. She doesn't linger at the top of the church too long, quickly scuttling down the side of the pews and back to her seat before the host has had time to dissolve on her teeth. ("Don't chew it," Mom always told them, although Peter did once when it got stuck to his back teeth and God didn't strike him down for it.) But Peter himself takes longer at the top.

He knows they are all watching him. Can feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on him when they should be focused on God.

Closing his eyes once the host is in his mouth, he blesses himself with the sign of the cross slowly and tilts his head up. With the sun streaming in through the large stained glass window behind the altar his vision goes red behind his eyelids. He counts to ten in his head before he turns to move on; he counts to ten and sets his chin defiant as he promises before God that he will bring this town to its knees.

 

 

\+ + +

 

 

**iv. the APOSTLE**

Unlike the others, Felix is just Felix. Plain old Felix, nothing highfalutin at all after it − he isn't a Pan or a Darling or even a Jones. Just Felix, nothing more or nothing less, but that suits him to the ground. Just fine, it is, just _fine_.

They skip class together on Monday, leaving Wendy behind and heading for the river bank round the back of the cemetery. Not a lot of people go there during the day so it makes a good place to hang out while hiding from teachers and someone who might rat them out − Downtown has more things to do (not that Downtown Jean LaFitte can really be classified 'Downtown', all family run business mainly contained around the crossroads, and more florists than one small town needs) but there is a higher risk of getting caught down there. And getting caught can only mean trouble for Felix; unlike Peter, his grades can't handle another visit to the principal's office.

Today, Peter angrily plucks at the grass and frowns at the Mississippi.

Softly, Felix asks, "Do you ever get tired of it?"

Peter huffs, briskly asking back, "Of what?"

"Of caring so much about what other people think?"

"I don't care what they think."

Obviously it is a lie but the fact that Peter believes it is enough for Felix to keep his mouth shut. A smile creeps onto his face all the same, but Peter is too busy frowning at the river going passed to catch him. Felix stays quiet and lets Peter frown until Peter turns back and says, "I don't care what they think, alright?" like he has to clarify this, has to explain it. "Don't get me wrong, I like that they think about me at all, but I don't care what it's about."

Felix thinks that's fair.

"I just-"

Peter stops.

He presses, "Yeah?"

"Sometimes it's not about me, is it?"

He doesn't have to say anything more, Felix gives him a solid nod to settle it and Peter returns to staring at the river, face softer now. He supposes he would be the same − if someone said something nasty about him, he'd handle it, but something about his sister would annoy him too. It kinda annoys him that they say things about Gretel, if he's honest; Gretel has only ever been nice to him, ever since that first summer he became friends with Peter and Felix smacked his head off the pavement outside the Pans' house; Gretel was the first person over to help him, ordering Peter to get a bag of peas from the freezer then asking Felix if he could tell him how many fingers she was holding up.

(Two.

She held up two fingers, Felix remembers, fondly.)

"Fuck 'em," he says. "They don't know shit."

"Yeah," Peter agrees. "But-"

Felix waits.

"They think they do."

 

*

 

"Sis?" Peter calls into the house, beckoning Felix in behind him.

Felix wipes his boots on the welcome mat, waiting for a reply from Gretel but Peter heads on further into the house, obviously uninterested in whether she is home or not. Felix jogs after him once he feels his boots are adequately clean and finds him rooting in the fridge for something to eat.

"Wanna stay for dinner?" he asks, Felix dumping his back on the table and unzipping it to pull out his History homework.

"Uh-"

"She'll say 'yes'," Peter insists.

Felix offers a shrug, which Peter sighs at but he doesn't press further.

When Gretel steps into the kitchen, her sweatpants are riding low on her hips and she is wearing a towel like a nun's veil, half heartedly drying her hair underneath it. Peter kicks Felix in the shin under the table as punishment for staring. Their eyes meet, Felix unconsciously licking his lips, and Peter mouths 'don't' at him.

"Hey boys," she smiles, lowering the towel to her shoulders. Her hair is a mess of damp tangles and Felix feels himself smile at the sight, thinking of how Peter's hair goes something similar when they swim out in the bayou together. "Just in?"

They chorus, "Yep," and she busies herself making tea.

Her shirt rides up as she reaches for a mug in the cupboard and Peter makes a noise of disgust at the sliver of skin it reveals. "Jesus, _Gretel_ ," he whines, "is that a hickey?" She has to look down to check − and Felix laughs, amused as Peter rolls his eyes; it earns him another kick − lifting her shirt up more and whispering 'god fucking dammit' to herself when she spots it.

"Please don't tell me you fucked Jefferson again."

Felix lets his eyes flick back and forth between the two of them. Compared to his own siblings, the Pans dynamic is a lot more friendly, more like roommates who occasionally feel the need to scold one another for bad behaviour. He laughs softly at them and Gretel rolls her eyes, pointing at Peter as she states, "Language."

Peter raises his eyebrow. He is clearly looking for a fight.

(In Felix's house, this would already have descended into a physical fight; someone would be in a headlock by now. But with these two, it stays words. Or lack of them. A lot of looks and deep sighs. He supposes it has something to do with the age gap − Gretel was already in high school when Peter was born, old enough to be his mother, really. If she had him around 15 or 16.)

"You can do _so much_ better than half the losers you fuck," Peter states.

"Peter," Gretel returns, the tiniest hint of anger in there.

He goes quiet but Felix doesn't think it is the end of it. They will probably bring it up again when he has gone home.

"Are you staying for dinner?" Gretel asks, words spoken into the mouth of her cup of coffee and her butt pressed against the counter top beside the microwave. 

They both wait for his answers, Peter and Gretel, and Felix feels himself shrinking away from their gaze. "Uh-"

"What are we having?" Peter interjects on his behalf.

"Contents of the freezer and rice − I've got chilli in there, a korma and something else. I'll take whatever you guys don't want." 

At this, Peter smiles.

He asks, "Can I have first choice?"

Gretel shrugs and Felix can't really argue, since this is Peter's house and Gretel is already having last choice anyway. With a crow of triumph, Peter heads for the back door and the second freezer in the shed − "Why do you have two freezers," Felix asked him, when they were both younger and Peter had shown Felix the inside of the shed for the first time. "Cos not everything fits in the one inside," Peter replied, then wrinkled his nose and asked, "Do you only have one?" like the possibility of people only having one freezer had never crossed his mind before − leaving Felix with his History book on his lap and Gretel perched on the counter.

They stay quiet for a minute, Gretel drinking while Felix turns the pages. He isn't reading, not really, but the captions under the pictures are enough for him right now.

She asks, "Everything alright?"

"With me or Peter?" he replies, carefully.

Gretel laughs. "With you. . . and with Peter, if there's anything to tell me."

"No, we're good."

"I know you are."

Felix has to look at her when she says that and she repeats it, once their eyes have met, for his benefit. "I know you are. But, I also know what it's like living in this town; I know how boring it can get, the things you can get up to. And," and she sucks in a big breath, the way Felix's mom does when she is about to give him a lecture, "I know he was the one who burnt down the gym the other week. I take it you were there, with him?" Felix nods, lamely. "Just be careful? Don't let him drag you down with him." Again, Felix nods. "You're a good kid, Felix, I trust you with him."

Felix's face curves into a smile, and he feels himself go stupid and shiny with it, with Gretel's pride and decree of responsibility upon him.

"Try and keep him outta trouble, yeah?"

As if on cue, Peter steps back into the kitchen, his boots knocking heavily off the linoleum. Felix shares one last smile with Gretel, who winks at him before draining the last of her coffee. Peter frowns at them both, "Should my ears be burning?"

"No," she lies, slipping down and heading for the sink. "Not everything in the world revolves around you."

Peter laughs dramatically.

"If you say so."

 

*

 

"So," and he exhales the smoke out through his mouth, watching Peter watching him, "how long has it been for you and Wendy now? Two months, three? Must be almost time for some sort of anniversary gift." Felix always gets a little more dickish, a little nastier and mean (more like Peter) when he's smoking. There is something about it.

Peter glares at him, making a swipe for the cigarette but moves too slowly. "Anniversaries are only for years," he corrects.

"You'll do those when you're married, I suppose."

"I'm not dating her," Peter insists.

Felix just looks at him.

With a sigh, Peter pulls himself up onto his knees and pushes himself into Felix's space. It is an obstinate act, more so to prove a point than anything else, but Felix can't say he doesn't like how easy it is to push Peter's buttons sometimes. Like right now, as he leans in and bumps his mouth off the corner of Felix's lips, Felix knows exactly how to put his hands on him and drag him in closer to annoy him more; if anything, Peter is more pliant when irritated, goes easy and cheap with it.

They keep kissing until Felix has his hand up the back of Peter's shirt, tracing the rough pads of his fingers along the notches of Peter's spine, prominent with how he is arched, catlike and gracefully, against him. He pulls back from Felix's mouth to say, "I'm really not dating her."

And Felix has to laugh.

He laughs because Peter might be easy right now, might be sitting on Felix's lap with Felix's hand up his shirt but he is utterly in control.

It is sort of sickening.

Sickening in the same way Felix wouldn't have it any other way.

He sighs, mostly at himself, and pulls Peter back in, not bothering to argue as Peter moves his hand down to Felix's fly and deftly pops the button.

 

 

\+ + +

 

 

**d. the FATHER, SON & HOLY SPIRIT**

Killian isn't sure how he ended up here. But sitting beside him in the car − in the old Chevy his brother was fixing up the summer before he was even conceived − is Peter.

He looks nothing like Gretel; he doesn't have the freckles or the mouth, the hair colour or the eyes. Even his devil-may-care swagger is incorrect, too cocksure and proud, like he is making a show of his lack of interesting in others, while Gretel wore her indifference more coolly during her teenager years.

"Everyone says you were in love with her," Peter says. He seems to be attempting 'flippant' but there's a curious note in his words that bring a smile to Killian's face, his head going 'gotcha' while he shakes his head, deciding to play dumb. "My sister. Gretel."

Killian coughs to pass the time, telling Peter he _is_ listening but that his attention is waning.

"Or should I say, my mother."

Slowly, carefully, Killian turns to look at him. Peter is looking down at his own hands, his fingers overlapped together and the smile on his face knowing. "What?" he asks, sharp. He doesn't bother lifting his head and looking at Killian; Killian almost laughs at his own foolishness. He gave it away in the easiest manner he could have. "I've always known. No one in this town can keep a secret."

He holds his breath.

With his head rising but his stare still focused forwards, Peter sounds out, "I think I just needed confirmation of it."

"Well-"

There is nothing Killian can say. He can't take it back. And, _really_ , he doesn't want to. He settles on saying, "I'm sorry she lied to you."

Peter laughs. Abrupt and bordering on rude, Peter laughs. At Killian, his sentiment and perhaps a little at Gretel as well. "What difference does it make?" Now he looks at Killian. "And you used the wrong tense − she still is lying to me."

"It's for the best."

He only says it because Gretel would say the same.

(That's what she told Killian, anyway.)

Peter's eyebrow raises. It makes his features sharper, changes the shadows on his face so Killian has to recoil back from him, a little afraid. He looks like he could unhinge his jaw and swallow Killian whole. As Killian thinks this there is a tell-tale flicker across Peter's face, as if he has had the same thought. And a slow, lazy smile of pleasure spreads across his face. Killian shifts forwards again after another moment, staying quiet.

"You're not my dad, are you?"

"I can safely say 'no' to that one; the one time I had sex with Gretel, I got spunk in her hair."

It comes out of his mouth, the dirty, honest truth, before Killian even realises he is going to say it. He practically chokes on his tongue, squeezing his hand into a fist and letting his nails dig into his palm as penance for it. _Shit._

This time, Peter's smile spreads wide enough to show teeth.

"Good."

 

*

 

(Another interlude, because it is necessary.

Peter is 11 and the prettiest girl he knows is Gretel. Mostly because she is the only girl he pays attention to but also because she is the only one who matters. Sometimes he looks at her brushing her long, dark hair and wonders why his hair isn't the same. Other times he brushes her hair for her, drawing the brush carefully through the ends so he doesn't split anything. She always tells him, "You're so gentle," and Peter beams and beams at the praise as she twirls all his hard work into a bun at the back of her neck.

She is 27 and still living at home. It isn't weird in a town like Jean LaFitte for people to stay nearby − Peter knows of that one guy who is still living with his mom and he has to be about 50. But Gretel isn't one of those people.

One afternoon when he's meant to be doing his Math homework but is reading a book on stars instead, and Gretel is meant to be getting ready for work but is reading a well thumbed copy of _the Bloody Chamber_ instead, their knees leaning on each other as they sit there and Peter looks up from the two pages about constellations to ask her, "How come you don't date?"

Once it is out of his mouth, he can't take it back but Gretel doesn't flinch the way she does when Mom asks her the same thing.

Cautiously, Gretel eyes him. "Why- why are you asking that?"

Peter clucks his tongue off his back teeth and eyes her for a minute, considering how best to phrase it. He is almost cautious with it, not wanting to offend her, but- "Ms Blanchard has just started dating David Nolan and that's all everyone can talk about at the moment and. I mean, I get it- I do get it, they're perfectly suited to each other but Mom is always going on about you dating and now even my _teacher_ is dating someone and, no offense to her, but you're way prettier than she is." As an afterthought, he tacks on, "Not that I think you should date David Nolan. You can do better than that."

"You're biased," she says, neither mocking nor laughing, just a statement of fact from her lips.

Peter thinks he knows what it means. 'Biased'. Or, at least, what Gretel means when she calls him it; it definitely isn't an insult, just a statement of fact and Peter puts his own meaning on it from that. He returns, "Only because I'm right."

It makes her laugh, which makes him think he got it wrong but she doesn't correct him.

"I don't want to date," she explains, eventually, after Peter has gone back to his book and she has moved on from _the Courtship of Mr Lyon_ to _the Tiger's Bride_ − her favourite in the collection; Peter likes _Wolf-Alice_ the best − then enquires, "Why, do you want me to date?"

He contemplates it for a moment and drags his thumb slowly along the spine of his book. He goes with, "I just don't want you to be alone."

"I've got you, don't I?"

Peter feels pride, warm and ridiculously Pavlov-like, swell inside his chest at Gretel's words. He tries not to smile too wide but knows it has already taken over his face, spread up to his eyes as the skin around them wrinkles with it. "Yeah," he agrees and Gretel nods. He says, in a loud voice like a judge may use to call out a final verdict, "You've got me." 

And that settles everything.)

 

 

\+ + + 

 

 

**v. the JUDAS**

Growing up with a surname like 'Jones' in a French town like Jean LaFitte isn't easy.

Leaving a town like LaFitte and returning after over a decade away is nearly impossible. But Killian does it. He arrives home on a Tuesday morning, a day early for his brother's funeral. Momma greets him on the doorstep, already wearing all black and no lipstick, every bit the mourning widow; Killian barely has his bag down on the ground before she's scooping him into a hug, so tight it hurts.

She cups his face in her hands and speaks in a watery voice, "It's good to have you back."

Killian thinks he isn't going to get to leave any time soon. (The thought bothers him less than it should, which in turn bothers him, more than the first thought did.)

"I've missed you," she insists.

 

*

 

He lasts two nights at home before he turns up on Gretel's doorstep, a bag slung over his shoulder and a wounded puppy dog look on his face; it used to work before, always get a reaction out of her (even if it was a roll of her eyes and a sigh) and he hopes not too much has changed between them. He has called regularly, always puts her Christmas card in the post on December 2 to make extra sure it arrives on time. But Killian hasn't seen her face in almost 17 years − all he has of her in his head is teenage Gretel saying, "You're going then," and that is it. That is where his image of her face ends and begins.

It isn't Gretel who opens the door.

On instinct, Killian says, "Peter," as the boy in front of him makes a show of letting his eyes run up and down him.

"Hello," he frowns. And that's it.

Killian coughs once to clear his throat and again to steady himself. He doesn't look like Gretel − his features are softer, paler, while Killian remembers a sharper, darker haired teenager when he thinks of Gretel. But he holds himself nearly the same way Killian remembers Gretel standing on the doorstep at 13, 14, 15. He coughs twice and says, "I'm Killian. I'm a friend of Gretel's."

With a quirk of his eyebrow, Peter clarifies, "Liam's brother," and offers Killian a smile. It is too vicious to be friendly.

He steps back to let him in and as Killian walks into the house, his bag butts his shoulder blade and he feels like an idiot. 'Some things never change,' his brain supplies, bringing up a matching memory with it, of Killian standing in the hallway, feeling somewhat lost and overwhelmed, while Gretel lingered upstairs, taking her time.

"Hang on," Peter says. "I'll-" then doesn't bother finishing his sentence, galloping up the stairs with his long legs and calling out, "Gretel, there's a Jones brother here to see you."

She appears as if out of thin air.

Killian can't help the way he has to swallow, his hands clenching into fists by his sides at the first sight of her. She is taller than he remembers but even from a floor down from her, he can tell her freckles are the same. If anything, she suits her 30s better than her teens, seems to have softened around the edges more than the last time he saw her (and Gretel was impossibly soft the night Killian came to say goodbye) as she smiles down at him. They don't run to meet one another. She takes the stairs one at a time as Peter watches from the top of the banisters, kinda judgemental but easy enough for Killian to ignore. "Killian Jones," she says, in the voice Killian remembers from years ago − husky and thick, like Gretel has smoked 60 a day since the day she was born − and Killian glows with a smile.

"You," he says simply.

They stand staring at one another and Peter laughs at them briefly before wandering off to find something else to amuse himself with.

She says, "I'm sorry about your brother."

He nods. Then states, "I was surprised you weren't at the funeral."

"Oh, well, I don't think your Momma would have been too happy to see me there."

Killian sighs but understands. Even before _everything_ Momma was never Gretel's biggest fan. Liam always liked her, probably would have wanted her to come to his funeral − if he and Killian had ever spoken about it, he would have told him, "Bring Gretel. She can do a reading or something." − but with Liam in the coffin and Momma as chief mourner, Gretel stayed away. Killian believes her when she says, "I would have come if there was any way I could have done it secretly, but-" She stops when his thumb presses into her cheek; Killian hadn't noticed his hand reaching for her but now that it is there, now that her skin is under his, he doesn't really feel like apologising for it.

They have yet to hug. It crackles in the air between them.

"It's ok," he tells her and beneath his hand her face moves into a smile. Killian smiles too − although he doesn't think he has stopped smiling since he saw her again − but feels like a liar. He feels like a liar and a thief because those words should be coming out of her mouth; he feels he should be the one apologising.

 

*

 

Gretel signals to the barman for another round. They've already had four, and three shots each, and Killian is starting to feel it at the tips of his fingers, sorta like pins and needles in his blood. He squints at her, through the dim light of the bar, and Gretel smiles. "What?" she asks.

"Nothing."

She lets it go with a laugh and when the waitress comes over with their drinks, she gives her a 30% tip and sends her on her way with a cheerful, "Have a good night."

Killian stares at her, wondering what it would be like if he had never left. (Ok. He is drunk. He is definitely drunk.) Then, he decides to kill the thought and drinks down half his beer in one go. When he looks back at Gretel, she looks impressed, albeit a little worried too.

"I'm sorry about Liam," she says about 20 minutes later, as the song changes from one to the next. It is thousandth time she has offered her apologies to him, which means when Killian puts his hand over hers on the table and says a gentle 'it's fine, don't worry about it' that has to be the thousandth time he has said that too. In his head, he sets the counter back to zero, knowing Gretel will say it again and counting anything above 1001 makes his head hurt.

They drink another two rounds, another pair of tequila shots appearing in the middle somewhere but Killian throws it back without a fuss, wincing around the sting and getting lemon in his eye. Gretel's hand is warm where it cups his chin, soothing with him a gentle, "Baby," as he rubs at it with his knuckles.

"Wanna go wash it out?" she asks.

Killian doesn't want her to let go of his face but doesn't know how to tell her. Or if he is allowed to at all.

"Nah," he says, shaking his head. "I think it's time we head home."

For this, she has to let go of his face but Gretel's hand finds his and pulls him along after her through the crowd standing at the bar. Their hips bump together as they wait for a waiter with a tray full of drinks to go passed, Killian laughing into the spot where neck flows to shoulder. He thinks he feels her squeeze his hand but he doesn't have to time to respond, Gretel taking a step forwards once more and dragging him along behind. (He feels stupid and 16 again, letting himself get dragged along by the prettiest girl in town. Part of him wants to suggest heading down to the river bank but they have both had a lot to drink and there is a high possibility he could do something stupid. Like drown. Or tell Gretel he loves her.)

At the traffic lights, Killian stumbles off the edge of the pavement and it is Gretel's turn to laugh.

It earns them a look from the women walking their dogs beside them, but Gretel pulls them both away before Killian can stick his tongue out at them. They break into a run next, unsure where the speed comes from, and have to stop when they reach the gates of the high school. It is all locked up for the night, every light in the building off and a padlock on a chain, holding the gates shut, keeping them out; not that Killian has too pressing a desire to go in.

"Weird," he breathes.

Gretel shudders next to him. "Yeah," she nods. She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and Killian stops looking at the school to look at her. "Peter burnt down the gym, you know? I think everyone knows, really. But I haven't told anyone else I know."

That sounds like the dictionary definition of a secret. But in a town like Jean LaFitte, just because you haven't told someone something doesn't mean they don't know; it doesn't mean they haven't told anyone else either, or that everyone else _isn't_ talking about it. Killian sighs before he says, "Peter knows you're his mom."

Gretel nods.

"I know. I think he always has."

He goes on: "He asked me if I was his dad."

"If only it was that easy," she says. She sounds impossibly sad.

It is because of the alcohol. It is because they are standing in front of their old high school, Gretel's hand in his and it is 17 years later than the last time Killian started getting stupid notions about getting brave and saying something dumb. It is because he has always wanted to know and Gretel has never told him. It is because a million and one reasons, each one more stupid than the last that Killian's next sentence is, "Who is his dad, Gretel?"

"I thought I was in love with you before I got pregnant," she answers instead.

His mouth falls open. And he laughs. "No." It is a statement, an argument, the truth as far as he knows it. Shaking his head, he repeats, "No. I was in love with you." (In his head, the idea he still could be flashes up but this isn't the time or the place for it. Or maybe it is. God, Killian wishes he wasn't so drunk.)

Silence falls between them.

A car passes behind them, the light throwing their shadows in distorted shapes up the driveway of the school. Killian watches as his shadow blurs over Gretel's, and he counts the seconds it takes for the car to pass around the next corner.

"Who is Peter's dad?"

With a laugh, bitter and hollow in sound, Gretel says, "You know."

As earnestly as he can, Killian meets her eyes, denying, "I don't."

She insists, "But you have to." Her hand falls away from his and Killian lets it, doesn't try to pull her back to him as Gretel turns her face away. "You have to know; I always thought you did. And that's. That's why you left." The chain link of the fence rustles under her fingers as she twists them over the wire. "I thought you were like everyone else."

"Who else- who else knows?"

"My parents. Your mom." She scratches at the back of her neck, setting the angle of her shoulder awkwardly against her neck. "She- they didn't believe me when I tried to tell them the truth."

Killian thinks he might get sick.

For a third time, he asks, "Who was he?"

"They thought I was lying."

"Gretel, tell me who he was?"

"Hansel." She just about says it around a sob; Killian's hand meets her shoulder in a heartbeat. "We were always close but. I didn't want it like he did. Your mom saw but she- she got the wrong idea, she didn't believe me when I tried to tell her. And then I got pregnant and my parents, they looked at me like it was my fault. They looked at me like- like I was a disgrace, like I was disgusting for letting this happen."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Gretel laughs again, cold and callous, so like laughs Killian remembers hearing from her lips when they were younger. She laughs and Killian pulls his hand back from her as if he has been burned. She steps away.

He reaches for her but Gretel is too quick. She is too quick, too smooth and her arm ghosts passed his fingers before Killian can properly try and grab her. She is already a good distance away from him but still he keeps his arm out. "Gretel," he calls after her. She only stumbles once as she turns back to face him, still walking away. While he still reaches for her. "Gretel."

"How did you not know?"

Killian can't-

Another voice calls out, "Gretel?" more curious, less insistent than Killian's own and when he turns his head towards it, he sees Peter.

She opens her mouth to say something but stumbles again, wobbling, and she laughs − at the sight of her son, at her own clumsiness, Killian can't tell. She laughs and Peter smiles, Killian watching the expression spread across his face and no one sees the car.

There is loud crunching sound, the sound of metal breaking every bone in a body. She lands meters away from the car and behind her, illuminated by the headlights, gory and grotesque beside a puddle, is a trail of her blood.

Like Gretel before him, Peter is too quick for Killian to catch.

He trips after him, stepping out onto the road.

The driver gets out of the car, white as a ghost and his hands shaking. "I- she just stepped out," but Killian waves his hand at him, orders, "Call an ambulance," while watching Peter gently, so tenderly Gretel onto his lap.

She is still. Unblinking, unmoving- dead. Gretel is dead and Peter is holding her, stroking the blood away from the corner of her mouth and whispering something Killian can't hear. Behind him, the driver talks to someone on his cell phone, loud and desperate in the otherwise quiet of the street. He hangs up and tells them, "They're on their way, should be about ten minutes."

Killian tries not to laugh.

Ten minutes? She's already dead. He wants to say this but Peter beats him to it. "You can leave," he commands, voice shockingly steady and strong despite the dead woman cradled against him; her blood has begun to stain his shirt red and sticky, drying into him as he glares up at the man who killed her. "Go," he says, firmer still than the last time − Killian feels himself take a step away. There is nothing he can do for him as the man scuttles away, cowering back to his car as Peter turns Gretel's face and looks at her.

He feels the need to reach for him, pull him away as her body grows cold, but Killian can't bring himself to move. It hurts too much to even think about it, it does, it does.

The ambulance arrives and one tech heads for Killian while two go for Peter. One of them reaches for Gretel as Killian explains what happened, how she got hit by the car- "It all happened so fast," he insists, his voice cracking as he tries to look passed the brunette in front of him and watch. Peter growls like an angered cat when they reach for her, the one on the left eyeing him cautiously while the one on the right tells him it's alright:

"Take your time," she says, carefully, then makes a show of stepping away.

Killian wets his lip and inhales a breath through his open mouth.

He is still waiting for Peter to cry but. . . Peter sets his jaw defiantly, almost grimacing down at Gretel's face as he cups her head in his palms. Other than the stain of red blood at the corner of her mouth, her lips are purple-blue and her freckles have already started to fade. Killian doesn't know whether he should cry or throw up. It all feels- too much.

Just too much.

Whatever Peter says to her, he keeps it between the two of them, leaning in so his nose butts off of Gretel's. (Vaguely, Killian wonders what her skin would feel like now. How different would it be to 30 minutes ago when his hand covered hers back in the bar.) The air he breathes out rustles through her hair where it is draped across Peter's knee and onto the road, long and dark and matted with her blood.

Leaning in for a second time, he softly kisses Gretel's mouth, and when he lifts his head up, some of her blood has streaked across Peter's cheek.

"Alright," the tech says, stepping forwards once more. "We'll take her."

They get her into the back of the ambulance and Killian offers his hand to help Peter off the tarmac. He neither swats him away nor looks at him as he rises, brushing passed him carefully. He doesn't even bother to look over his shoulder as he instructs Killian, "Go home."

 

*

 

(One final interlude − although this one is more for Peter than for you, reader.

It is too hot in the car. With all the windows open and Gretel driving 73 mph Peter's back is slick with sweat and sticking to the seat behind him. Feeling gross, he moves to fold his arms on the door and watches the horizon, New Orleans twinkling in the haze, sitting back where they left it after breakfast.

With the radio broken, Gretel sings to fill the quiet. Peter leans his cheek on his arms and does his best to listen to her over the sound of the wind whipping passed his ear. She has started in the middle of the song and will go until she is finished with it, whether that is to the end or not, but Peter likes the way she does it, the way she picks apart songs to suit her, the way she always has. He smiles and tilts his head more, hoping to catch her eye.

But he stays quiet, listening to her low, husky voice as she concentrates on the road.

And he doesn't call her out on it when she repeats a verse over and she looks over at him, smiling around the line, "I love you like the stars above, I love you til I die," when she spots Peter's eyes on her. With a chuckle, Peter goes back to looking out the window, sighing softly to himself as she stops and asks, "What?"

"Nothing," he replies.)

 

*

 

Killian hisses, sharp and quick, as Peter's grip tightens around his fist. For a boy of 16 he is suddenly all power and strength, heat rising off of him as he forces Killian onto his knees.

He feels the bones of his knuckles grind together harshly under Peter's palm.

The funeral was yesterday. Killian only stopped by to see if Peter was alright, if there was anything he could get him. He expected to find him upset, crying, with red-rimmed eyes and the blood underneath his cheeks risen to stain his skin pink − he expected Peter to reach for him and shudder while he stroked consoling patterns between the notches of his spine under his shirt and skin. But Peter has him on his knees before he can get the question out fully, lips pulled back and teeth bared in a snarl.

"No," he had spat. "There's nothing you can do for me."

He moved so quickly then, Killian was powerless to stop him. Now his arm shakes, tensed to the elbow with every tendon straining against him. His mouth stammers around an apology. Kneeling before him, Killian offers Peter an apology because it all he can do. Kneeling like a pilgrim before God, all he can do is ask for forgiveness.

"You," Peter says, the word sounding like it comes from the pit of his gut, "you had no right to come back."

He is angry, burning with it, and Killian understands. He lets him have his angry, doesn't try to fight him on it, but he finds himself shaking his head at Peter's words. "No," he says but doesn't continue. It doesn't matter what way he explains it because Peter is never going to forgive him − he can feel that in Peter's grip − but he needs Peter to know he is wrong.

Gretel wanted him to come back.

Really, he should have _never_ left.

Peter grits his teeth, snarling around a harsh smile as Killian flinches in pain at the sharp twist of his wrist. It feels as if it is breaking. "She wouldn't be dead if you hadn't come back," he proclaims, smiling still around it although it doesn't reach his eyes. (A boy has lost his mother, Killian's head tells him. And it's your fault.)

"I know," Killian admits. And something inside Peter breaks.

He all but collapses into Killian like his strings have been cut, his knees clattering sharply into the wooden floor, with his grip still as sure on Killian's hand.

Peter kisses him with a sort of helpless desperation, this feeling that if he doesn't then all the bones inside his body will rattle right out of him. At least, that is how Killian takes it when Peter bites into the plush of his bottom lip and all but trembles until his hands rest themselves on his shoulder, effectively pinning him in place. He half expects Peter to whimper like a wounded animal − for he is feral, so feral and wild right now − as he moves his hand up to cup his jaw, but he gives Killian nothing like that; he pants and bites again, letting himself get manhandled onto the ground and releasing his hand so Killian can get it under his shirt. His knees spread to either side of Killian's hips.

He seems to be moving willingly but Killian knows he is being dragged down by him. If Peter did not want to be under him, Peter wouldn't be under him. Simple.

Underneath Killian, looking up at him with wide green eyes and kiss swollen red lips, Peter is every bit the broken hearted teenager, begging with every inch and angle of himself for Killian to make it better, while still retaining all the control; Killian couldn't stop, even if he wanted to.

Peter pulls him back down, this time attaching his teeth to Killian's neck and biting. Biting and biting and biting until Killian feels his skin break, the sharp, hot pain of it that makes him hiss, "Little shit," which, in turn, makes Peter's mouth move into an open smile against his skin and has him pushing his hips up into Killian's as a violent apology. Killian trembles at the press of it, the warmth and the roll of it, pushing his hips back into Peter's as something leaden and ugly settles in the pit of his stomach. He stutters out an embarrassing noise and against his skin, Peter chuckles. Peter laughs and pulls him in hard as Killian's body seems to move without permission, lowering him closer to the floor.

He attempts to pull himself back but Peter's fingers tug again, more violent, angry but Killian sags with it, meeting Peter's mouth halfway and pushing the noise he makes − not quite a whimper, not quite a growl − back inside his lips.

Killian feels seams tear but isn't allowed pull away to check.

It is only after they've both come − Peter first, and Killian feels monstrously disgusted in himself for how he reacted to a teenage boy coming in his jeans, then Killian following, his orgasm taking him by surprise as Peter's teeth sank into his neck again before laving his tongue over the marks he has made − that Peter lets Killian up.

Killian wants to crawl out of his skin and never look back.

Betrayal. Dirty, heavy betrayal sits on his shoulders, weighing him down as Peter rises up − with a beautiful amount of grace for someone with spunk drying in their jeans − and steps away.

Once more, Killian is on his knees in front of him. He feels pathetic and weak and the way Peter looks down his nose at him only makes the feeling worse. "You can go," he states, waving dismissively in the direction of the front door. It stings more than it should but Killian thinks he may deserve it. "Go back from where you came."

His eyes meet Peter's and he says, "I'm sorry."

Peter pushes a bitter noise of a laugh out through his nose. "For what?" he questions, "for groping me on the floor or for Gretel?"

For both, Killian thinks but says nothing.

Peter sneers, "Get up."

"What are you going to do?" he asks, suddenly, trying now to have the conversation they should have had when he first arrived. Peter looks at him, his shoulders relaxing as if he is bored. "She was your guardian, right?"

"Right," Peter clicks back, mimicking Killian's tone. "And now she's not."

Killian pretends not to hear it as he picks himself off the ground.

"They're talking about calling Hansel-"

"Don't."

Peter flinches but quickly re-centres himself and moves his face into a frown. Killian bites him lip, afraid he may say something else. After everything else he has said and done (to this family, to the boy standing in front of him) he _can't_ tell Peter that. "I wasn't going to," Peter says.

"Will you be alright?"

Quick as a flash, Peter retorts, "I will be fine."

And Killian thinks, Yeah, yeah you will.

 

 

\+ + +

 

 

**e. the APOCALYPSE**

After the storm, everyone points their fingers in Peter's direction − it comes too close after his mother's death (no one is pretending any more) for it to have come for any other reason. Divine revenge, pure and simple; The Lorraine cross from the top of the church gets flung to the town border, lying pathetically on the ground behind the 'Welcome to Jean LaFitte' sign that is bent and scuffed, crooked and befitting the rest of town's state.

Even Wendy and Felix have to agree.

Wendy tells Daddy, "He was praying. Crying and praying- but I don't know if God brought the storm or if Peter brought it himself."

Like all good fathers in Jean LaFitte, Mr Darling half listens to his daughter before moving onto another topic.

Felix tries to talk to Peter about it, about Gretel's death and about what he is going to do next, but all he gets is a laugh and a brutish, "Does it really matter?"

Killian reads about the storm, the carnage and the destruction a day after it happens − he sees the photos on the side of the newsstand and has to stop to buy the paper. He never usually buys a paper, usually he manages to walk passed the newsstand and all the copies of _Time Magazine_ without so much as a second glance, but this is- there is the old oak tree beside Fleming Cemetery uprooted in the middle of the road, and an overturned truck beside the Bulldog Bar. He snatches up the paper and slams down the money, ignoring the guy calling him back for his change.

He bumps into five people, reading it as he walks.

_Flooding along Privateers Boulevard where the Mississippi broke its banks._

_Wind speeds during the storm reach a record high for the state._

_The storm seems to have passed without causing any destruction to the surrounding towns and area._

Killian finds a bench and sits himself down on it, folding the paper to try and catch his breath. It takes over a minute, remembering to breathe in and back out again, repeating repeating repeating until he can open the paper again and read the article again.

"Shit," he says to himself. "Fucking _Christ._ "

 

 

_**F I N .** _

**Author's Note:**

> i don't think anyone likes biblical allegories as much as i do. i'm sorry. let's blame william faulkner for everything, ok? here, have [a mix](http://8tracks.com/ossians/as-above-so-below-the-hosanna-americana-remix/) as an apology.


End file.
